Noticing a disturbing trend...

[Flojomojo]

Like their mp3 service? Mind you, an extremely negative consumer backlash made Walmart change it's mind about shutting off the servers at the time, although the point is that just because a company is big you shouldn't assume it'll always be around. They don't need bankruptcy to pull the plug - just not high enough profit margins. (Especially the case with stores that aren't completely dependent on the drm service of the day for their bread and butter - you have a much better reason to have confidence in steam than a retail chain.)

That's a good point -- though 2008 was a different era in terms of cloud services. I feel better knowing that DRM-free music purchases are the norm now, and hopefully there will be more anti-lock-in options like GOG Connect and Movies Anywhere. I just bought some $10 movies in iTunes and was tickled to see them immediately available in YouTube because of my account connections.

 

I thought Vudu was its own thing until I looked it up and found it was a Walmart acquisition. The service is built into many (most?) smart TVs, right?

[Andromeda Stardust]

Like their mp3 service? Mind you, an extremely negative consumer backlash made Walmart change it's mind about shutting off the servers at the time, although the point is that just because a company is big you shouldn't assume it'll always be around. They don't need bankruptcy to pull the plug - just not high enough profit margins. (Especially the case with stores that aren't completely dependent on the drm service of the day for their bread and butter - you have a much better reason to have confidence in steam than a retail chain.)

This was everywhere though. Roxio, Microsoft, everyone ditched the drm servers. What was really a kick in the balls however was they did not allow people to redownload songs as mp3 without paying again. Even so, the switch to drm-free content made a much more friendly ecosystem for consumers and still profitable for the industry alike.

 

Music DRM died a slow and painful death, and consumers ultimately won out. Now if the same thing could happen with games, movies, and software. Everything is moving towards subscription based now. Streaming is nice, until you log in to find your favorite show or movie in your viewing queue was there last week now gone. Too bad Netflix couldn't retain access favorites and watch later.

[Schizophretard]

That's a good point -- though 2008 was a different era in terms of cloud services. I feel better knowing that DRM-free music purchases are the norm now, and hopefully there will be more anti-lock-in options like GOG Connect and Movies Anywhere. I just bought some $10 movies in iTunes and was tickled to see them immediately available in YouTube because of my account connections.

 

I thought Vudu was its own thing until I looked it up and found it was a Walmart acquisition. The service is built into many (most?) smart TVs, right?

 

You were probably thinking about how they work with things that are their own thing like UltraViolet.

 

Yes, smart TV's, set top boxes, consoles, etc. It is hardware agnostic. I use it on my Nvidia Shield Android TV. I mostly use it when I buy a Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy combo. So, if for some reasons Walmart gets rid of VUDU and major movie studios stop using UltraViolet as a digital rights locker then I would mostly be unaffected as far as owning the movies are concerned.

 

If games on the Switch worked this way I would have no problem with it. I would just lose the ability to carry digital copies but the Game Cards would still work fine.

[Flojomojo]

Physical + free digital code is nice for consumers but seems inefficient.

 

I felt the same way about "ephemeral" purchases until iCloud came along, and (finally!) did backups for you, allowing you to redownload as long as the company supported it, which in Apple's case, feels like a long time to come. Later on they added Family Sharing so passing around passcodes wasn't needed.

 

If Nintendo had a similar account system, that would be nice, but I've decided life is short and media is plentiful, so I take my chances.

 

Last time I was a "big loser" in DRM hell was with Onlive, where all my "purchases" went up in smoke when the company went under. Most of the stuff they were offering had been given away for free with PlayStation Plus anyway.

[Bilnick]

Downloads do have one nice advantage for people with multiples of the same console. I can buy one download copy of a game and play it on 2 separate consoles online at the same time. My son and I did this with Destiny, Diablo, and a few other games on the XB1. I don't have multiple PS4 or Switch consoles, but I would assume that they work similarly.

 

I don't really care whether I get a game on disc/cart or download, whichever is cheaper is what I buy. I don't really worry about playing games I buy today 20-30 years in the future. I am sure that in the future there will be an emulator on a cheap Raspberry Pi type computer that will allow me to play all the old games in a more convenient package, just like today.

[Rick Dangerous]

Nice to see the Switch getting some decent physical releases..

 

Hopefully this "disturbing trend" will be reversed for a little while as the demand remains for physical on cartridge based consoles like the Switch.

 

The more I think about it, the fact that the games are on carts, which I know are durable, is one of the main appeals of the switch for me (besides the portable mode, and the fact that it's a nintendo console.)

 

[Flojomojo]

Hopefully this "disturbing trend" will be reversed for a little while as the demand remains for physical on cartridge based consoles like the Switch.

I find cartridges the most disturbing of all! They can be lost, broken, stolen, or swallowed!!!

 

[Tanooki]

The only rational thing disturbing around those Switch carts are the flavor they applied to them to deter eating them.

[Flojomojo]

Nintendo is gradually getting the hang of the digital marketplace. In a Nindies panel at GDC 2018, the company talked about how its digital sales of its third-party games for the Switch and the Nintendo 3DS are exceeding sales of its traditional "boxed" games in the US.

 

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/nintendo-hits-milestone-as-download-sales-exceed-packaged-goods-eshop-improvements-incoming

[Andromeda Stardust]

The only rational thing disturbing around those Switch carts are the flavor they applied to them to deter eating them.

Not to mention a crap ton of middle aged men licking Switch carts in youtube videos like they had some sort of weird sexual fetish! So I would say if anything, the news of the bitterant going viral had the unintended side effect of more people sticking carts in their mouths. I did this first thing when I unboxed Zelda. Now I know what Ganon tastes like. The bittering compound really isn't that overwhelming, but the aftertaste lingers for a notably longer time than I'd have liked. Washing with Lysterine (20% alcohol volume) helps immensely with dispersing the flavor.

[simbalion]

The fact that the Switch still does physical releases is a big reason why I finally bought one myself. Without broadband, it's near impossible to do anything where I live and I prefer having a physical release I can keep. Only issue I am pondering is how to do any updates to the system if I ever need to. If Nintendo ever goes fully digital on their releases, that will be the end of the line for me.

[thetick1]

Not to mention a crap ton of middle aged men licking Switch carts in youtube videos like they had some sort of weird sexual fetish! So I would say if anything, the news of the bitterant going viral had the unintended side effect of more people sticking carts in their mouths. I did this first thing when I unboxed Zelda. Now I know what Ganon tastes like. The bittering compound really isn't that overwhelming, but the aftertaste lingers for a notably longer time than I'd have liked. Washing with Lysterine (20% alcohol volume) helps immensely with dispersing the flavor.

 

That's great... sarcastically or real it is hilarious either way.

 

Now if I can just get my wife to spank me while I simultaneously lick a switch cartridge... oh yea that will do it!

Edited March 22, 2018 by thetick1

[Keatah]

Eeww Groady!

[Andromeda Stardust]

The fact that the Switch still does physical releases is a big reason why I finally bought one myself. Without broadband, it's near impossible to do anything where I live and I prefer having a physical release I can keep. Only issue I am pondering is how to do any updates to the system if I ever need to. If Nintendo ever goes fully digital on their releases, that will be the end of the line for me.

Take your switch to a coffee shop, laundermat, any McDonalds with free wifi and do your downloads from there. Unless you live in the heart of Amish country...

[Skarrj]

Nobody wants cartridges anymore.

 

I still do. I loathe digital content unless its free, a great deal or just the only way to get it. I hate the trend of going digital. I want something tangible to show for my purchase.

[Tanooki]

Same here. Now I will add that if the option were there as it was sent out digital but can be made physical which only GoG.com does I'd 100% support that and be fine if physical vanished if I could always make my own legitimately without having to violate DMCA level stuff like you'd have to do with say Nintendo eShop games.

 

When you lose that ability to keep what you pay for due to some developer squabble,TOS violation perceived or earned otherwise, licensing goes to crap, servers die, old systems fold after server death. That's entirely unacceptable for full price ($20+) level budget to AAA ($50-60) games.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I still do. I loathe digital content unless its free, a great deal or just the only way to get it. I hate the trend of going digital. I want something tangible to show for my purchase.

+1.

[Keatah]

And yet the trend of digital-only is increasing faster than exponential, it would seem. People claim to hate it, but continue to dump increasing record-breaking amounts of money into it!

[simbalion]

And yet the trend of digital-only is increasing faster than exponential, it would seem. People claim to hate it, but continue to dump increasing record-breaking amounts of money into it!

I have a feeling we are going to regret that someday soon. 1984 anyone?

[Andromeda Stardust]

I have a feeling we are going to regret that someday soon. 1984 anyone?

1984 is here. It may not be the dystopian future Orwell envisioned, but surveilance on internet usage and data mining is real. The recent Facebook leaks with targeted political advertising is proof enough. The dumb thing about it is the amount of gullible people who blindly consent to privacy invasions and selling of their data. And the guys (like me) refusing to agree to the terms or cancelling their service are all tinfoil hat wearing nutjobs apparently. I thought the twitter campaign to unplug facebook was laughable since all social media sites basically print money by selling user data. People find out it was used for x and get up in arms, yet they agreed to it in the first place by using the service.

[Andromeda Stardust]

DP.

[Keatah]

It's the gullibility and and lack of presence of mind. Corporations know this and depend heavily upon it. Ask any marketing department. Or become a fly on the wall and listen in to the extraordinary disrespect they have for you sheeple.

[Tanooki]

You're leaving one part out, both of you, the awesome power of praying on laziness. If they were forced to read it, if you were made to understand that the 'BUY' button for instance with those game downloads is anything but buying, people would flip their shit far more than I think many realize. Even much more when it comes to stupid social media sites with all they collect to then screw with you and others over, or worse that collection get jacked and sold to criminals on the dark web or elsewhere. Yet again, we're the nutty ones who grasp onto the past. It's not the past, it's caring what we still control and not without being some stupid lemming.

 

I'm not asking anyone to 'rent' this for $1.99 but it's a youtube link to Adam Ruins Everything for the episode on online buying, internet rights, the data mining and the rest how much people get bought, sold, and basically digitally raped by these entities to make a buck.

 

Just take down the details below and you can search the episode name/number/season to get it one way or the other.

 

I know it's a little extreme, but I feel this should be required to watch if you want to use the internet, own a mobile phone, or even subscribe to cable(etc) tv as that's in there too. 20min of knowledge would go so far in killing that tin foil hat argument against reality as it is now.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Tanooki

[eightbit]

I personally like physical copies of stuff. Games, music, etc. And, for a lot of reasons...but here are three:

 

1. I own a physical item that I can use on ANY switch console

2. I like the look of the cases and the cards, and the look of a shelf of them

3. The physical carts are usually CHEAPER than the digital downloads (something I would have expected to be the opposite)

 

I think if you cannot deal with the fact that you have some physical cards and cannot "lug" them around (with the size of them that alone is hilarious) or you cannot be bothered with popping a game card in the slot (really?) digital download is for you.

 

Not for me though. If a physical copy exists along with a digital copy I will but physical only.

 

I do buy digital as well, but generally only sub-$20 titles and stuff that is worthwhile and just cannot be had in physical form. But otherwise I will continue to buy physical cards until I can no longer do so!

[Mephitblue]

While I prefer physical over digital as I have a bit of the collector bug, I do see a couple of benefits to digital:

 

• No physical storage space - I live in a small townhouse. Places to put things are limited. This is one of the reasons my music collection is almost all digital. I just don't have a place to store all of those CDs.
• Playing convenience - With physical copies of games you need to switch out the cart or disc to change games. This takes some time to do. Also, if you are travelling you need to bring all the physical games with you, where as digital is stored on your Switch, meaning less things to pack and keep track of.

There are legitimate reasons to go all digital and I can see why some people prefer digital. I prefer physical when it comes to console games. PC games are another matter, those damn Steam sales keep tempting me to buy games that look interesting that I never get around to playing. (Looks at his Steam library of 90+ games, in which he has only played about 15 of them).